oom
He’s been feeling off ever since he got back from his world.
(At first he thought it would go away -- if he could just push past the fear and the paranoia, maybe he could ignore the nagging feeling at the base of his spine, maybe he could work past the issues cropping up in his head -- but it hadn’t.)
It only got worse when Billy got back.
Dave was dead. Murdered.
”You just killed yourself, Doc.
You’re Billy the Kid too, you know. You all are. Little Billy bastards.”
First it had been Tunstall.
Then Richard.
Charlie.
Steve.
Alex.
Then he’d tried to run to New York; tried to hide from his past and start over. Tried to start a family.
(And Jonathan was proof of that, even if the boy would never know his true father. The more Doc thought about the things that Yen would have to tell him, the more he realized it was just layer on a pile of lies.)
He’d been dragged back to New Mexico.
Then they’d lost Tommy.
(Even though he’d almost lost his life, he lost a piece of himself up at that abandoned cabin as he bled out into the sand and sage.)
They’d killed Chavez.
Dave had run one way (south, to Mexico -- it was supposed to be safe) and nobody knew where Henry had ended up. Billy disappeared, ‘shot’ by the Sheriff Patrick Garrett. And everyone thought that Josiah Scurlock was dead.
Until that day in Raton, when a bounty hunter stumbled upon a pair of Regulators holed up in a farmhouse, trying to live like honest men. Another piece of himself had been lost on the floor of that farmhouse as his blood soaked into the pine boards and the dust.
(And he’d found a piece of himself, as that bounty hunter bled out on the floor.)
Milliways used to be a refuge against the storm out in his world, but it wasn’t anymore.
Dave was dead. And all Doc could think about was avenging that death -- about getting together the boys and going out to make every last sonovabitch pay for killing one of their own -- and that made him realize that he’d been living a life that wasn’t his own for all the months he’d been here in Milliways.
(And there were other things, too. The other version of himself that had arrived in the bar, the other version that Kate had fallen in love with. The other version that had fathered a child that never made it to see the world; the other version that was shot in the stables and that died in Colorado on a ranch that he had only ever dreamed of.)
He’s an outlaw.
”I need to t’take care of things out there, and it ain’t no place for us.”
Not a father. Not a husband.
”Things just ain’t been right...they ain’t been right for a long time, we both know it.”
And he has a job to do.
”I can’t in good faith keep doin’ this...livin’ this life.”
Nothing else matters to him, except the responsibility to make things right -- to make sure that nobody ever messes with the Regulators again.
There is no such thing as an ex-Regulator.
”I know this ain’t gonna be easy, but s’what we’ve gotta do. We can’t keep lyin’ to ourselves when we deserve better.”
And no matter what that takes, he’s going to make things right.
(Life the life that he knows.)
(At first he thought it would go away -- if he could just push past the fear and the paranoia, maybe he could ignore the nagging feeling at the base of his spine, maybe he could work past the issues cropping up in his head -- but it hadn’t.)
It only got worse when Billy got back.
Dave was dead. Murdered.
”You just killed yourself, Doc.
You’re Billy the Kid too, you know. You all are. Little Billy bastards.”
First it had been Tunstall.
Then Richard.
Charlie.
Steve.
Alex.
Then he’d tried to run to New York; tried to hide from his past and start over. Tried to start a family.
(And Jonathan was proof of that, even if the boy would never know his true father. The more Doc thought about the things that Yen would have to tell him, the more he realized it was just layer on a pile of lies.)
He’d been dragged back to New Mexico.
Then they’d lost Tommy.
(Even though he’d almost lost his life, he lost a piece of himself up at that abandoned cabin as he bled out into the sand and sage.)
They’d killed Chavez.
Dave had run one way (south, to Mexico -- it was supposed to be safe) and nobody knew where Henry had ended up. Billy disappeared, ‘shot’ by the Sheriff Patrick Garrett. And everyone thought that Josiah Scurlock was dead.
Until that day in Raton, when a bounty hunter stumbled upon a pair of Regulators holed up in a farmhouse, trying to live like honest men. Another piece of himself had been lost on the floor of that farmhouse as his blood soaked into the pine boards and the dust.
(And he’d found a piece of himself, as that bounty hunter bled out on the floor.)
Milliways used to be a refuge against the storm out in his world, but it wasn’t anymore.
Dave was dead. And all Doc could think about was avenging that death -- about getting together the boys and going out to make every last sonovabitch pay for killing one of their own -- and that made him realize that he’d been living a life that wasn’t his own for all the months he’d been here in Milliways.
(And there were other things, too. The other version of himself that had arrived in the bar, the other version that Kate had fallen in love with. The other version that had fathered a child that never made it to see the world; the other version that was shot in the stables and that died in Colorado on a ranch that he had only ever dreamed of.)
He’s an outlaw.
”I need to t’take care of things out there, and it ain’t no place for us.”
Not a father. Not a husband.
”Things just ain’t been right...they ain’t been right for a long time, we both know it.”
And he has a job to do.
”I can’t in good faith keep doin’ this...livin’ this life.”
Nothing else matters to him, except the responsibility to make things right -- to make sure that nobody ever messes with the Regulators again.
There is no such thing as an ex-Regulator.
”I know this ain’t gonna be easy, but s’what we’ve gotta do. We can’t keep lyin’ to ourselves when we deserve better.”
And no matter what that takes, he’s going to make things right.
(Life the life that he knows.)